


What We Did for "Troy"

by FrankensteinIsland



Series: If You're Hector, Who's Cassandra? [2]
Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Blasphemy, F/M, Gen, Heresy, Impending executions, Nerds using the Iliad to speak in code, Piracy, Robbery, escaping from jail
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 11:42:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13763388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrankensteinIsland/pseuds/FrankensteinIsland
Summary: A series of bad decisions that mostly work out for the best. Mostly.





	What We Did for "Troy"

She would probably die in the morning, but maybe not.

  
Maggie’s blasphemy trial had been an opportunity to try to legitimize her views, but getting sentenced to execution and thrown right back into her dark and dusty cell was...humbling. When faced with her own mortality, she realized that her theological opinions were not so important and revolutionary that they were worth dying over, and maybe she should have apologized or never have written them down in the first place. She could have been a better wife, read her books, left well enough alone, and waited to question God until she met Him in person.

  
At least she was trying not to go down without a fight. She had an escape plan, but it was a terrible one. Heresy was not exactly the sort of crime that gave a person access to a dark criminal underbelly. All the same Maggie had some indirect connections to the sort of people who knew how to get in touch with the sort of people who might be willing to help a rich young woman escape prison for the right price. She had asked a friend to spread the word during her trial, and now all she could do was hope. And pray, she supposed, but everyone whose opinion mattered seemed to think that she had offended God, so praying might backfire.

  
Again, this was not a great plan. It depended entirely on there being some miscreant who both had the resources to pull off a prison break and was so hard up for money that he would risk his (and maybe others’) lives and freedom to rescue a stranger. Yes, this was probably the end for Maggie --

  
She was pulled away from her thoughts by some noise over in the dark corner of the jail. She hadn’t seen or heard many fights in her life, but she believed this was the sound of a tussle. She saw two figures in shadow, and then one of them went down. Behind the one still standing, several more moved forward.

  
The figure in front was moving toward her cell, and she was craning her neck to try to get a better look at who was coming. It didn’t look like the guard from before. He (at least it looked like a man) was thinner, and she thought she saw loose long hair. At first she was transfixed, trying to make out his features. Then she realized that maybe she had better step back in case she had to defend herself.

  
She was near the middle of her cell, poised to...well, she wasn’t sure what she might have to do, but she was bracing herself for an attack...and at this point it was clear the man was definitely coming toward her. He eventually stopped in front of her, and she got a better look at him. He was young, maybe about her age. Dark eyes, small goatee, and most importantly, he was holding a key.

  
“Margaret Warwick, I presume?” he looked back toward the guard slumped on the floor and grimaced slightly. “Er, hope.” His gaze returned to her, and she faked confidence as best as she could under the circumstances.

  
“Maggie to my friends -- which it looks like you are.” She nodded toward the key. While they were talking, the other figures caught up with him. There were several older men, most of whom had much longer beards and looked a bit older at first glance. The man directly in front of her jerked his head back to indicate one of them. She could not tell which.

  
“Mr. Barbossa back there might be your friend. I just want your cash.” With that, he unlocked the cell door but continued, “And you can always remember tonight as the night when you were saved from certain death by Captain Jack Sparrow.”

  
She wasted no time getting out the door before he changed his mind.

  
“Captain? As in pirate captain? I expected a pimp at best!” Maybe God didn’t hate her after all. Captain Sparrow, on the other hand, was giving her a wary look. “By which I mean you are exceeding all my wildest hopes and dreams. Thank you.”

  
“Why can’t all women talk to me like that?” he grumbled, and a couple of the men in the back -- they must have been his crew! -- snickered. He continued, speaking quickly: “Am I right to assume that the reward you promised your rescuers is not in this location?”

  
“Right,” she answered after a beat to process. I can take you there?” This was a question because maybe they would prefer to leave her locked up until they actually had the valuables in hand. But he nodded, and the others crowded in, closing her in so she would have to stay in the middle of the pack. Not a bad way to make sure she didn’t run away but also acknowledge that she wasn’t enough of a threat to bind in any real way.

  
She waited until they were out of the jail before saying anything else, in case there were other guards, or the other one...woke up? She also decided not to ask just how “out” Captain Sparrow had knocked him.

  
Soon a small crowd was moving through the night, Maggie giving instructions because the captain was still at the front of the formation. This meant that she did not get an opportunity to ask which of the men in the back her “friend” Mr. Barbossa was, even though she was growing increasingly curious.

  
It was a clear night and quiet other than their whispers. She couldn’t imagine better conditions for breaking into her own house.

  
When they stopped in front of her home, she suggested that she should go in alone to get the money, since she knew where it was, and one person could be quiet more easily than a whole pirate crew. Captain Sparrow refused and sent someone named Pintel to go with her.

  
Pintel seemed not particularly happy about this, but he followed along and kept his complaints to himself as Maggie opened up her front door and slipped inside. The place was large but not as opulently decorated as most people of their stature had. Maggie’s husband had some family heirlooms but mostly rejected her ideas whenever she wanted to add something new. Still, what they had was valuable, and she went around picking up everything she could carry.

  
When she had gotten everything she could remember downstairs, she sighed and turned to the pirate, keeping with the hushed tones.

  
“The rest of it is upstairs.” She could just barely make out Pintel’s features, but it looked like he understood.

  
They made their way up the stairs without incident. She could hear Nathaniel snoring from the hallway. That was a good sign but reminded her that she wouldn’t miss sleeping next to him when she started...whatever her new life was going to be. Maybe she would miss him a little. She had to focus now on getting the cash so she could survive past tomorrow.

  
Suddenly there was a crash, and she whirled around, mortified. Pintel had knocked a candlestick over. He looked a little apologetic but mostly angry...even though he was the one knocking things off tables. Maggie cringed as she heard Nathaniel stirring. She peered around the corner to watch him, willing him not to sit up...and then he did.

  
What she had been planning on grabbing was in her room down the hall, and she stood still, hoping that if they were quiet enough, he might think all was well and go back to bed.

  
Instead, he got up.

  
“Wha-who’s there?” He was tense, and he wasn’t sure if he would recognize her. She made sure to put the growing stash of valuables behind her back. Nathaniel stopped in the doorway. “Maggie?” He sounded truly frightened. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

  
“That’s actually not until morning, dear. You can go back to sleep. I just...ah...projected my spirit here...before my new husband --” she pulled Pintel forward -- “Metistopheles...takes me to Hell tomorrow. You know, demons are sentimental, and he just wanted to see where I lived on this mortal plane.”

  
“Is that my mother’s portrait?”

  
She took a step back and looked at Pintel. He seemed to understand what she was getting at, because she heard a rustling, then a click closer to the doorway. Suddenly a pistol was against Nathaniel’s head.

  
“You’re going to let us go now, chum.”

  
“Oh no! Metistopheles, don’t take his soul to hell! He’s lived a pious life!” she pretended to plead hysterically and thought that the fake sob actually sounded rather convincing in the dark. It came from desperation, but Maggie found herself oddly enjoying this. She thought she heard a sound like Pintel sucking his teeth, though. In spite of him, it seemed to work. Nathaniel started begging them to spare him and just begone in the name of the Lord, etc. etc.

  
So they did make their way out of the house with all the loot they had grabbed. Most of the value was going to be her jewelry, which she hadn’t gotten a chance to get to before Nathaniel woke up...but she didn’t want to push her luck. This was not ideal.

  
When they met up with the rest of the pirates, Captain Sparrow suggested getting back to safety before they counted the loot, so Maggie ended up going with them to their ship and nervously standing by while the captain and his first mate distributed everything, making sure it was all there. Pintel and another crew member guarded her all the while, making sure she hadn’t cheated them.

  
Eventually they came back. The first mate looked older than the captain, which struck Maggie as a little surprising, but then, maybe pirates valued youth in their leaders. Captain Sparrow nonetheless looked stern, and the first mate no less so. She prepared to explain herself.

  
“So, where is the rest of it?” the captain asked.

  
“Right. So...you may have noticed that we hurried out. This is because my husband woke up before I could make it to the jewelry. I realize that rather than running away, I could have had Mr. Pintel shoot him, but this seemed riskier than leaving.” She paused, having one last fight with herself about whether she was really about to suggest what she was about to suggest. “So the way I see it now, we could wait some time and go back, or...” She made up for the pauses and their apparent impatience by finishing her proposal quickly. “I could work for you to pay off the rest of what I owe you.”

  
The two men looked at each other. The captain looked skeptical, and the other was difficult to read.

  
“Sorry love, but we aren’t exactly interested in a full-time --” Captain Sparrow looked her up and down and pronounced the next word carefully enough to convey that he didn’t mean it literally -- “theologist.”

  
“Oh. Ah, no. I was thinking more along the lines of actually joining your crew.”

  
“Right. And I don’t suppose you have any experience with sailing, navigating, fighting...?”

  
“Not particularly. There were some books I had been meaning to read, but --”

  
Here he addressed the first mate.

  
“Hector, you were the only person who thought this was a good idea. What do you think now?”

  
Hector -- she suspected now that he was also Mr. Barbossa -- looked at Maggie, then at the captain and gave a strongly accented but surprisingly articulate answer.

  
“True, we might expect her to be especially green, and the crew might have some initial protests. But I’ve read her commentaries. They do seem to suggest a sort of flexibility of thought that could translate into bein’ a fast learner and a rebellious streak that could translate into proficient piracy.”

  
Maggie didn’t believe she had ever liked anyone as much as she liked Hector Barbossa in this moment.

  
She kept her mouth shut, watching Captain Sparrow. He nodded.

  
“Very well then. Show her around, and if she costs us more than she makes us, we’ll reevaluate.” Then he turned, went to the helm, and started shouting orders Maggie didn’t understand yet.

  
Which left her standing alone with Mr. Barbossa, although other crew members were running around to follow their orders, paying them no mind.

  
“Thank you for that,” she blurted. He shrugged.

  
“Was only stating my impressions. I do admire your work, by the way.”

  
She was beaming, but being complimented was somewhat uncomfortable, so she changed the subject.

  
“So...it was Hector Barbossa?”

  
“Aye.”

  
“Is Captain Sparrow a good King Priam?” This said with a mischievous smile, so he would know it was a joke. If he had actually read her pamphlets, he probably knew his mythology, and this was a good way for two learned people to communicate. Despite her best efforts, though, he looked grave when he answered.

  
“More like Paris, I’m afraid.”

  
“Oh.” She blanched. “And Helen?”

  
“That depends on the day.”

  
“Oh. Oh dear.” What had she gotten herself into? Piracy, sure, but piracy under a mercurial captain? And this was according to his first mate, who probably knew him better than anyone. Still, any situation in which she wasn’t hanging had to be better than any situation in which she was.

  
“Don’t fret too much about him. We can all afford to eat, usually.”

  
They kept talking as he had her follow him to the crew’s quarters.

  
“For your sake and ours, there will be no special treatment. So you’ll be called Warwick by your equals and Mr. Warwick by the captain.”

  
“Actually, under the circumstances, maybe it would be more appropriate for me to go by my maiden name. It’s Smyth with a Y.”

  
“Maybe just Smyth, and we can hold off on remindin’ people you can read.”

  
She wasn’t sure if he actually thought she meant people should call her ‘Smyth with a Y’ or if he was joking, so she laughed just in case.

**Author's Note:**

> Look. Can I be really real with you guys? This character has been in my mind for a long time before anyone ever knew Margaret Smyth was a person. I don't know if changing things around to decide she was Margaret Smyth all along is going to work, but I'm at least entertaining myself. Hopefully some of you as well.
> 
> This whole series is going to be nonlinear as heck, but I think that's appropriate.


End file.
